Short thread on #Catholicism (lapsed, in my case), #highered, #divorce, & what it means to allow grace into our lives on Holy Thursday & always.

#HolyThursday is my favorite day of the Catholic year: It's a day to reflect not only on serving others, but on letting them serve us.

As a child in the Catholic Church, I knew service represented the core of my family's faith. How can we use our gifts to enrich others? How can we make ourselves humble before the tasks of service? How can we bless others via care?

Turns out, this is the EASY part of service.

It is EASY to serve my students, my friends, and my family by loving them. By showing mercy when mistakes are made. By offering space and by offering closeness. By loving others in ways that work for THEM, not just ways that would work for ME.

Being a servant this way is easy.

Of course, higher ed would have you believe that there's no spirituality in our classrooms. And honestly, as a current atheist, I'm pretty glad of that. But it'd be a lie to say that the image of Christ washing the feet of his friends doesn't inspire my own ideations of grace.

It is service to:

-honor your students' identities
-believe their stories and lives
-respect their work and their effort
-get to know them as people
-shape your classroom into a community
-offer extensions and mercy when possible
-offer fellowship and support
-be kind

#highered

I remember when my grandfather was dying, my mom sat by his bedside in the hospital. She sang him "The Servant Song" over and over:

"Will you let me be your servant?
Let me be as Christ to you.
Pray that I may have the grace
to let you be my servant too."

It took me years to understand that song. I understood the GIVING part of the song: I know what it means to serve. I didn't understand as a teen what was meant by hoping you'd find the grace to let someone else serve you. I didn't know that we bless others by letting them in.

In the Bible, the Apostles aren't thrilled Jesus is gonna wash their feet. They're all, "Jesus! No! You're fancy! You can't wash our feet!" and Jesus is the eyeroll emoji and does it anyway.

And often, in my life, I've protested too: You shouldn't! You don't have to! You can't!

But the most radically transformative moments of my life were times I found the grace to let other folx be my servants, too. When we let someone serve/love us, we bless the God/the good in them. The same way WE connect to God by loving others, OTHERS connect to God by loving us.

When you give someone the opportunity to touch humility, love, and holiness through their tenderness toward you, you are acting with grace.

& even if someone can't accept that opportunity, or mistreats you, you are still acting with grace by being vulnerable enough to allow it.

Here's how I embody this in class:

-I am transparent w my students about when I'm hurting

-I tell my students the truth about my life

-I, when appropriate, offer students chances to support me or hear my stories

-I model vulnerability through outing myself about my identities

Students nearly always respond with love, enthusiasm, tenderness, & compassion. When you show students that THEY can contribute positively and with empathy to YOUR life, you teach them that even in situations where they don't think they have "power/authority," they. have. grace.

I find this harder to do as I continue my divorce, though. With students, I can be pedagogical. With family or friends, I just feel vulnerable & weak when I need help. It's hard to say I'm lonely, or scared, or broke, or hurting. It's hard to say I need help, or space, or both.

But I also know that the only way I'll ever get closer to the Universe (which is how I'd now define my sense of God) is to make myself vulnerable to it in exactly those ways. To allow the Universe to work through others to bless me, and to wash my feet, and to love me.

There's a song called "God is the River," by Pete Mayer. The general idea is that a dude falls into a river and clings to a rock in the river, begging for God to save him. He's desperate to be saved from the water. But God says to him:

"God is the river, swimmer. So let go."

As a kid, I thought Holy Thursday was about the call to serve others. As an adult, I know that it's just as much about letting go of that call, and allowing others to love and serve us. Whether it's in a classroom, or at the end of a marriage, or at work, or whatever.

And so Holy Thursday is my favorite day of Holy Week, even tho I'm not a Catholic anymore, bc I think the most beautiful gift we can give one another is the opportunity to love. That blesses others. & we can bless ourselves by letting go of the rock in the river & finding grace.

Why am I telling you this?

Bc as the semester ends, it's easy to forget that we're all just on this earth to walk one another home. Be kind to your students. Be kind to yourselves. Know that the lesson we're supposed to be learning is how to let go, & let the river carry us.

But we can only let the river carry us if we acknowledge that we are, you know, IN it. And that we need to be carried, since we're hurting where we are. And that sometimes, we are the river for others. And sometimes, they're the river for us.

That's what pedagogy IS.

So, hey. Anyway. From a lapsed queer Catholic (sup, @Slate) to you:

I pray you find the grace to serve others.
I pray it heals you as much as them.
I pray you find the grace to let other people serve you.
I pray you find God/the Universe in yourself when you do.

Love ya'll.